Lavender Honey is a delicious herbal honey that you can easily make at home. It has a floral aroma and lovely complex flavors of Lavender. This honey has a variety of uses for both sweet and savory applications.

This will be a quick favorite for your sweet tooth or dessert rotation! Great taste aside, this Lavender Honey packs some wonderful herbal healing properties as well.

(This post may contain affiliate links. That means I’ll get a small commission on any sales made through those links. Read our full disclosure.)

How To Make Lavender Honey

Lavender honey famously originates from the Provence region of France- true lavender honey is made by bees that pollinate lavender flowers. As the bees spend their days landing on and pollinating lavender flowers, lavender nectar is carried back with the bees to the hive and used to make honey.

The at-home infusion of lavender into honey is clearly a different process, however, it is a method to gain both lavender flavor and healing benefits in your honey!

You can use any type of honey and any dried, food-safe lavender for this recipe. As with all things cooking, the better ingredients you begin with the better end result you’ll have! A lightly colored, mild honey will allow more lavender flavor to shine through.

The base ratio we use for this lavender honey recipe is 2 tablespoons dried lavender buds to 1 cup of honey. Let this steep for 2-3 days at room temperature before straining.

Uses For Lavender Infused Honey

You can use lavender honey any way you use regular honey- which has way more uses than most people realize.

• Spread on toast, English muffins, or focaccia bread
• Drizzle over yogurt, oatmeal, or breakfast bowls
• Add to smoothies as the sweetener
• Use it in baking recipes
• Use to flavor and sweeten coffee and tea
• Make lavender lemonade
• Swap with sugar to make lavender-flavored, honey simple syrup!
• Balance salad dressings and marinades with lavender honey
• Add to herb-roasted vegetables

Add lavender honey to any kitchen dish, sweet or savory, that would benefit from a sweet, floral flavor.

Expert Tips

#1 If using crystallized honey. Crystallized honey has a much thicker consistency and can be challenging to infuse as it’s difficult to evenly disperse the lavender buds throughout the honey. Warm crystallized honey to help evenly distribute lavender buds.

#2 Gently warm the honey to strain. For a better shelf life, we recommend straining the lavender buds out of the honey once infused. Honey is thinner when warm, so if you gently warm the honey it’s much easier to strain and separate.

#2 Use dried lavender buds that are detached from the flower heads. Dried lavender is sometimes sold still attached to the flower stems. Use individual buds removed from the stem for best results so they mix into the honey.

#3 Flip the jar of infusing honey. You may notice all the lavender buds floating at the top of your jar for the few days you infuse the honey. Several times a day, I’ll flip the jar over so the lavender buds will slowly move through the jar, from the bottom back up to the top again.

Related Recipes: Turmeric Honey | Vegan Honey | Honey Syrup

What Type Of Lavender To Use?

There are two types of culinary or ‘food safe’ lavender widely available for sale at health food stores and online and they are both great to make lavender honey- English and French.

French Lavender: French lavender tends to retain a purple color when dried. French lavender has a stronger flavor and may have more notes of camphor or pine. (Lavandula stoechas)

English Lavender: English lavender is also popular for culinary applications and has a very light purple/greyish color when dried. English lavender has a sweeter, milder flavor. (Lavandula angustifolia)

Benefits Of Lavender

Lavender is well-known for sleep-promoting properties, including reducing anxiety, helping people to fall asleep, and ‘waking up feeling more refreshed.’ But, lavender’s uses go beyond sleep and relaxation!

Lavender has also been researched for mood-boosting qualities, healing skin conditions such as acne, minor burns, and collagen production, and providing relief for headaches and migraines. (Source)

Storage Tips

We recommend storing lavender honey in the fridge as the ‘food safe’ route and for an extended shelf life. This also slightly thickens the honey, providing a nice spreadable consistency.

If you are making a large batch of lavender honey you can store it in the freezer. Due to the high sugar content in honey, it will not freeze solid and remain in a gel form but the temp will drop!

The post Lavender Honey appeared first on Willamette Transplant.